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Every week, dozens of people walk into the Sunshine convenience store in Charlottesville, Virginia, to send money to relatives in other countries. They use a service called MoneyGram, one of the two largest firms (the other being Western Union) that facilitate the conversion of US dollars into the currency of the receiving person, charging between $9.99 and $49.99 (7.97 and 39.89) for each transaction.

Many of the patrons of Sunshine alert their relatives of these transactions through WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging service owned by Facebook and used by more than 1.5 billion people around the world.